


Tale as Old as Time - Well, sort of

by kuiske



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Humour, No Warnings, and a shy person being the center of unwanted attention, save for treacly fluffy romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-24
Updated: 2015-10-24
Packaged: 2018-04-27 19:29:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5061124
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kuiske/pseuds/kuiske
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Bombur was a good thinker and a listener, but a good talker he was not.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tale as Old as Time - Well, sort of

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not making money with this. All rights to their respective owners.

Bombur was a good thinker and a listener, but a good talker he was not.

Sometimes he joked that it was the natural result of having Bofur as a brother, one had to learn how to listen. Bofur _never_ shut up if he could help it, he’d even talked in his sleep as often as not when they were children sharing a bed. It’s not like Bofur disagreed either. He had a habit of telling people how Mahal in all his wisdom had taken a good look at his creation and then sent him a little brother to keep sure he didn’t accidentally leave his own feet behind when getting out of bed in the morning. Bombur wasn’t sure he’d take it that far, but a fact was Bofur was sometimes as scatterbrained as Bombur himself was pensive, and that it _would’ve_ been embarrassing to start every day by falling on one’s face due to forgotten feet. All things considered, they made for a good team.

All the joking in the world didn’t change the fact that Bombur was _shy_ , and he knew it too. It was one thing to joke and laugh in the presence of the people he’d known since before he could walk, but it felt altogether safer to opt for silence with dwarrows he wasn’t familiar with. Or sometimes even with folks he knew very well, and would’ve very much liked to get even more familiar with. Like miss Hedra, who had the loveliest copper beard and dimples when she smiled at him. She always took the time to smile at him, too, even when she was busy and he couldn’t figure out what he ought to say to her. Bofur was sympathetic, but very much _not_ helpful on that area: he offered to go and talk to her and tell her that Bombur would like it a lot if she cared to join him on an evening stroll and an apple-pie he’d baked himself. Bombur could’ve died of shame just thinking about the scenario. 

He wasn’t entirely certain how people went about talking to people they liked very much, since all the songs seemed to forego talking and just have the fated lovers fall to each others’ arms and live under stone working their crafts together until the end of their lives. Even the word _lovers_ was enough to have Bombur blush deep crimson, and in any case, he was pretty certain there weren’t any songs where the groom’s brother had to do all the talking on account of the groom himself being too shy to get a word across. Besides all of this was purely theoretical, since Hedra probably didn’t even like him and just smiled at him because she smiled at _everyone_. No, it was better not to say anything at all and dance with her in the pub and the fests when she asked him. (Surely out of sheer politeness, she had a heart of gold with enough room in it even for shy lads who stumbled over “Good morning” as often as not.) Better to say nothing _and_ to be ready to pummel Bofur to silence with a mattock or a cooking pot if that’s what it took. 

As it happened, it was a meddling sibling who intervened, though for once the one to stick his spoon to other people’s cooking wasn’t Bofur. It was Hedra’s little sister Segur who caught Bombur by the sleeve one day and told him to ask Hedra for a walk, so that she’d _never_ again have to hear her sister go on about how _nicely_ he braided his beard or _lovely_ it was that he acted so kindly towards everyone. The half-grown dwarrowlass took to her task with all the single-minded determination of an entirely too long suffering younger sibling, which was something Bombur felt very much inclined to sympathize with. If only she’d been slightly more tactful in her approach. 

As was often the case, _tact_ was the first casualty of dwarven honesty and directness. Segur saw fit to ask - to _command_ , really - Bombur to take her sister out in the middle of the marketplace with her sister standing right next to her. Hedra screamed like a banshee and would’ve likely strangled her little sister with her own braids if she hadn’t been quick enough to slip out of her reach and into the crowd. The dwarrows who’d heard the exchange stood around cheering and stomping and whistling as if they hadn’t seen anything half as entertaining for years. Bombur felt his face burn and wanted the rock to split open and swallow him down to save everyone the trouble of laying him back to stone, for he was certain he was about to drop dead out of embarrassment any second now.

Only it felt inconsiderate to die and leave Hedra to be stared at all on her own. Bombur didn’t know what to say though, and for all that he was lauded as a good thinker he couldn’t think his way out of this mess. If he ran away he’d hear of it until the end of his days and leave her thinking he’d maybe taken offense with _her_ and not their neighbours’ undue amusement. And if they left _together_ the most audacious ones would certainly follow them with their lewd suggestions, may a curse fall upon their ancestor’s beards. His one consolation was that Hedra wasn’t nearly as tongue-tied as he was and had no trouble telling the crowd that she’d shave them bald and have them hunted out of town like goblins they were if they didn’t start minding their own business _right this instant_. Bombur thought she looked very fierce and lovely indeed, but even he had to admit she might have been more intimidating if her face hadn’t been quite as red.

Like in most tales, it was a mighty warrior that saved the day. 

Not that this mighty warrior was at all aware of the fact that he was saving the day. Dwalin just happened to be making his way through the marketplace at a very convenient time. And what with him being a dwarrow of towering stature and even more towering reputation, it just _happened_ that he barely needed to bark for folks to **give way** before a path was cleared up for him. While the gossips did their best to scramble out Dwalin’s way - all the while doing their best to make it look like they weren’t, in fact, scrambling anywhere - Bombur and Hedra seized the chance to slip away unnoticed. 

If you’d asked him a minute ago Bombur would’ve answered without hesitation that anything was preferable to being gawked at by half the village. Now that he was hiding on a small side-alley with only Hedra for company he was beginning to appreciate all the benefits of, well, of not having to think up something to say to her _after_ being gawked at. He must have been speaking at some point though. Hedra was speaking to him, of that he was certain and he was almost positive that he was stammering out words in response that maybe tied together to make comprehensible sentences. His mouth felt like it was made of wool and he had no real recollection of any of it, but he almost _had_ to have been saying something at some point, because the next thing he knew Hedra was seated by his kitchen table sampling a batch of hazelnut cookies he’d pulled out of the oven just before heading out for the marketplace. 

Somehow a few cookies turned into a shared dinner, which turned into more shared dinners and walks and some spectacularly smug looks from Bofur and Segur both. Self-satisfied siblings hardly mattered to either Bombur or Hedra, and they mattered especially little that day almost a decade later when he for the first time touched their newborn child safely asleep in Hedra’s arms. 

_Their child_. Little Bedur.

For all that he was a good thinker, Bombur was sure he could never have thought up anything half as perfect even if he lived for a thousand years.

**Author's Note:**

> By the way, Bombur totally baked some 'thank you' -cookies for Dwalin a few days later.


End file.
